Now He Can Play More!

The girls have been delighted to discover more games that Levi can participate in. Like kick the ball,

and sword fight!

Just Levi (or "E-bi" as Hannah calls him)

Ice Towers

I wish I could give credit where it was due for this project, but it's been a couple years since I saw it and tucked it away in my memory banks as a fun activity to do with my kids during our long winters. So to whoever thought this up, thank you! First we found lots of containers, filled them with warm water and food dye, then set them on the front porch to freeze overnight. (This is where we hope food dye doesn't kill our kitty who's been hanging around - knowing our luck, it just might!)

Next morning we brought out a bucket of warm water to dip each container in so we could then pop the ice out and make towers with it.

I poured a bit of the water between each "block" of the ice tower and it worked great as glue to stick it all together.

The towers look a little wobbly but are actually quite sturdy and haven't changed a bit in the few days they've been up. With our forecasted temperatures, I'm sure they'll stick around for awhile.

Now I'm having visions of trying it with buckets and building arches and things to walk through, or spelling things with sticks inside the ice. We'll see how ambitious I actually am!

Easy as ABC

Teaching a child to read.
For some unknown reason, that has been my biggest fear as I've thought about homeschooling.
Then Heidi wanted to learn, and I thought she was ready.
We began.
Her with excitement, me with trepidation.
You know what? It's not as hard as I thought.
We have our bumps and rough spots, but she's steadily learning and improving in skill.

My favorite part?
Watching her as she comprehends a word she has read and voluntarily offers a definition or uses it in a sentence.

"Cat" - "We had a cat but it got stomped on by the calves and DIED!"
"take" - "I will take you in the ambulance"
"has" - "the wood has fire on it"
"kiss" - "I'm gonna kiss you!" (this one ends with laughter as she tries to attack me with kisses)
"walk" - "we go for a walk in the hundred acre woods" (her name for our bush)
"rag" -"Oh, like, my clothes are all in tatters"

"This is our Robot head!"

Kitty Confessions

I thought cats were supposed to have nine lives?
It seems the ones who come our way have used eight and a half of them.
Ever since the Great Mouse Invasion of the Winter of 2009/2010, I have desired a feline on the premises who could keep the outdoor rodent population to a minimum in an effort to keep the indoor rodent population at precisely ZERO. We tried bringing a kitten home, but soon determined a more mature cat would be more likely to survive Ruger's (our dog) curiosity. Kitten was given away. In the past three months we have brought home three nearly grown cats. All of whom have survived Ruger and yet, um, have not survived.
Miriam the First walked with us to the mail box and did not return.
Dandelion became a little too closely acquainted with the tire of the truck.
Miriam the Second discovered sleeping under calves' hoofs not conducive to keeping one's internal organs intact.
Is it really so hard to keep a cat alive?

We do have a stray who's been hanging around for a couple of weeks. I waver between hoping she'll stay and telling her to flee for her life.

The kids are really starting to hope for a pet who lasts more than two weeks.
Yesterday I bought them goldfish.

Me 'n My Boy, Levi: 5 Months

My happy boy, he awakens me in the mornings with his laughter!

My little man and I with his Christmas present from the rest of us - a snake of every color according to Heidi's specifications. When stretched out, he's over six feet long. Heidi thought we needed to keep going, but I saw visions of stitching and stuffing all night Christmas Eve and called an end to it while still a manageable project.